No. 1—and Then Some

To understand what in tarnation they're saying in college football these days, it is necessary to begin with a guide on how to speak like your basic student-athlete gridiron hero, to wit:

Live: Does not mean live, in concert. It means liiiiiive, as in happening, as in worthy or good, as in "Oh, Buffy, don't you just think the Boz's new 'do is live?"

Humongous: Large. Very large, as in " Oklahoma's offensive line goes 275, 280, 265, 280 and 295, which is bigger than the Chicago Bears', which is pretty humongous, dude."

Answer the phone: Used when one player hits another so hard that he "rings his bell" and causes someone to say, "Hey, somebody answer the phone." In extreme cases—like the way Oklahoma's humongous offensive line rang UCLA's bell last Saturday in Norman, Okla.—one would say, "Hey, somebody answer the phone. It's long distance."

Bogus: Bad. As in " UCLA quarterback Matt Stevens is either a bogus quarterback or somebody rang his bell Saturday [he was intercepted five times] and nobody was home."

Blast: To defeat effortlessly and completely, as in "The Number 1 Sooners went blast on Number 3 UCLA, 38-3. You shoulda been there. It was live."

Pooched out: Bummed, severely depressed, as in the faces of the Californians after playing Tokyo to Oklahoma's Godzilla, giving up 14 yards rushing to every 1 of their own; getting "embarrassed on national television," as UCLA coach Terry Donahue put it; and banging their noses into the plate-glass realization that their national ranking was either a bogus No. 3 or Oklahoma is one humongous No. 1.

Now UCLA. Now you don't.

The whole trip did seem a bit unwise. OU's offensive line—a Trailways with feet—outweighed UCLA's front three by 35 pounds a man. Not only that, but also UCLA has never been one to play anybody from the beef-eatin', option-feedin' Big Two Conference and leave without welts and contusions. Twice in the '80s Nebraska went blast on them, 42-10 and 42-3, by doing the same thing OU did to them Saturday, belly-bumping the city slickers back to the county line.

The only chance the Bruins had was to have a live throwing day and pray for turnovers. That went pffffft when Stevens threw four first-half interceptions and played, by his own admission, "as horrible as could be." For its part, OU forgot to turn the ball over in the second half and never turned it over on the wishbone at all. Astute types, of course, saw it coming. A couple of exhibits: